Players: 2+
Playing Time: 30 minutes
Difficulty: 3 (of 10)

The Components

Pieces of Eight is sold in a somewhat unusual manner. Each player has to buy their own game, which they can use to compete with other players who also have their own copies. There are actually two different sets of Pieces of Eight currently, "The Cursed Blade" and "Maiden's Venageance". Each has a different set of coins which suggests different strategies.

Each game comes with:

• 16 coins
• 1 pouch
• 1 rulebook

Coins: The coins are, clearly, the heart of the game and also the heart of what makes this game unique. Each is a hefty piece of metal, about 20% wider than a quarter and the same thickness. They've got a great weight and are entirely cool to hold, particularly when you have a handful of them--as you do for this game.

15 of the coins are silver colored, which is unfortunately a bit hard to read from far away if you have any glare. The 16th coin is bronze colored and it's very easy to read; it's a pity that the main set of coins wasn't made with this dark alloy.

There are 15 different types of coins spread throughout the two sets. Each one is depicted by a unique graphic and a number (which just says how many of the coin you can use in a game, and varies from 1-5). Unfortunately this results in very bad usability. Every coin has special powers, and some coins are used in different ways. We were able to play our playtests only because I'd printed out cheat sheets (available from Atlas) and had further marked them up with some icons to note: whether you destroyed the coin to use it; whether you needed a mate to use it; and whether the coin could be used out of turn.

I understand that the coins are what make this game unique, but from a pure playability standpoint it would have worked much better as a card game with cards which clearly stated what each power did--though I'm sure usability issues would improve as you played more games.

Part of the concept of the game is that you can play while standing around at a convention or elsewhere, and this works decently well. You have a stack of coins (your "deck") in one hand, and a single coin for your crow's nest in the other. (You can, of course, also play at a table with your crow's nest and deck each laid out on the table.)

Bag: A velvet bag with draw string.

Rulebook: A four-page black and white rulebook with a very handy two-page centerfold which decribes what all the coins do and a whole page of options for different ways to play the game.

On a pure coolness scale, Pieces of Eight would earn a Stylistic "5" out of "5" for the coins. Even with the contrast issues I mentioned they're entirely neat. However the usability issues do make the game hard to get into--and hard to get new players to try out. Further the cost is very high. If individual players can be convinced to buy the coins, $20 per player isn't bad. However if a single person wants to try Pieces of Eight out, the $40 cost to get a pair of games is pretty prohibitive.

Because of these issues I've given Pieces of Eight a "4" out of "5" for Style: still quite cool, but it has some issues too.

The Gameplay

The object of Pieces of Eight is to be the last Captain standing.

Setup: Each player begins by choosing a set of 13 legal coins. They can be selected from a player's personal stash or through a "coin pooling" mechanisms described in the alternative rules section. A player must have one captain in his set and can't have more of any individual coin than the number depicted on the coin.

Any remaining coins stay in your "hold" (the bag), which is where dead coins go too.

After choosing a set, a player must now organize them. One is placed in the "crow's nest" (which is your left hand if you're playing on the move) and the other are arranged into a 12-card deck, which is a stack of coins that has a fore and an aft (and which sits in your right hand if you're not at a table). Your captain is probably toward thee middle, to protect him. Your fore and crow's nest coins are both "open", meaning opponents can see them. Those coins and your aft coin are all "active", meaning that you can use their powers (and they're typically more vulnerable to attack).

The player who finishing arranges his coins first will get to go first, a nice element to hurry people along in the setup phase.

Order of Play: The order of play in the game is very simple. There are three phases in a player's turn:

1. First Crow's Nest Phase
2. Main Play Phase
3. Last Crow's Nest Phase

A Crow's Nest Phase allows a player to move the first (fore) or last (aft) coin in his deck to the crow's nest if the nest is curently empty. Usually a player won't need to worry about this, and can just take the main phase.

The Main Play Phase: On his main phase a player can take one of three actions:

1. Play a Coin: allows a player to take the special action of one of his "active" coins: the fore coin, the aft coin, or the crow's nest coin.
2. Destroy a Crow's Nest Coin: allows a player to throw out the coin in his crow's nest, presumably in preparation for moving something new there.
3. Call Coins to Captain: allows a player to minimally reorganize his deck. His fore and aft coin are moved next to the Captain--either one to each side or both to the same side--in any order.

Playing a Coin: Much of the play in the game is thus in the individual powers of the various coins. As noted there are 15 coins between the two sets. Their powers, which can only be used if they're fore, aft, or in the crows nest, are:

• Barrel of Grog: Discard to return a specific coin from your hold.
• Black Spot: Reactively force an opponent to lose a turn when they destroy one of your coins.
• Bomb: Discard if you have an active mate to destroy an open coin.
• Broadside: Destroy any coin but a captain.
• Buried Treasure: Discard to return two random coins from your hold.
• Call to Quarters: Discard to return a random coin from your hold, then rearrange your deck.
• Canon: Destroy a fore coin if this coin is open, plus do additional damage for extra cannons.
• Captain: Destroy an active coin.
• Captain's Monkey: Reactively avoid this coin's destruction.
• Cutlass: Discard to destroy an open coin; or keep this coin if you have an active mate.
• Mate: Discard to destroy an active coin. (Also powers other coins.)
• Pillage: Discard to take an open coin from an opponent.
• Pistols: Discard to destroy an aft coin; or keep this coin if you have an active mate.
• Treachery: Reactively discard this coin to negate another coin's ability.

Winning the Game: You win when you're the only captain still alive. For a two-player game this means you've worked through your opponent's deck, got his captain to a vulnerable position, and killed them. For multiplayer games this means that amongst all the players there's only one captain left.

Relationships to Other Games

Pieces of Eight is a pretty simple conflict game. The ultimate object is to hurt your opponent by removing his resources; almost all the coins in the game are directed toward that singular goal.

It's most reminescent of CCGs like Magic: The Gathering, though Pieces of Eight's conflict system is entirely original.

The Game Design

Pieces of Eight is a light, enjoyable game. The biggest problem with the game is inevitably the same problem already discussed in the components section--it's a bit hard to keep track of what all the coins do, especially when different coins activate in different ways (namely, some of them are discard when used, some of them are required for others to activate, and some can be used on their own and without discarding).

Once you get past that the actual gameplay is quite quick. A lot of the strategy comes from the initial setup, but there's just enough strategy in "calling your coins to the captain" (and thus rearranging your deck) to keep things interesting throughout a game. The variety of powers among the coins is thematic and also helps to keep the game interesting.

There's no serious depth here, but that's not really what the game's intended to be: instead it's designed as a quick, fun game to play in the halls of a convention or otherwise when you don't have a lot of space or time.

I've given it a high "3" out of "5" for Substance: slightly above average.

Conclusion

Pieces of Eight is a new game from Atlas that includes entirely beautiful coins, but also requires you to pay for that privilege. It's quite pricy unless you can find friends who want to buy a box of the game too. Beyond that it's a light, amusing pirate game that doesn't have a lot of depth but is sufficiently interesting for its short 30 minute or less playtime.

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